March 6th

Wednesday

2019

As we embark on Women’s History Month, our Strategy team has developed Quick Hits pertaining to women’s history!

Here’s the thing : “A great deal has been written about the pathways and barriers to women’s advancement into leadership positions. Concepts such as the glass ceiling, concrete walls, sticky floors and career labyrinths have received significant attention in research and popular media. The recent advancement of women into key leadership roles in business, higher education and government are seen by many as positive signs of change. For example, the College of William & Mary, the second oldest institution of higher education in the U.S., recently named Katherine Rowe its first-ever female president. The recent midterm elections witnessed a record 110 women elected to Congress, including several “firsts”: the first Native American woman, Muslim woman, Somali-American woman, openly LGBTQ woman, youngest woman and African American woman representing Massachusetts are all headed to Congress next year”. – Forbes, Audrey Burrell

“There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish.” – Michelle Obama

The U.S. Teaching Population Is Getting Bigger, and More Female

Teaching in the United States was once considered a career for men. Then the profession’s gender composition shifted dramatically around the mid-19th century, when the country’s public-school system was born. During the 1980–81 school year, roughly two in three—67 percent—public-school teachers were women; by the 2015–16 school year, the share of women teachers had grown to more than three in four, at 76 percent. (From 1987 to 2015, the size of the teaching force increased by more than 60 percent, from about 2.5 million to about 4.5 million, according to the recent report, which helps explain why the field tipped further female despite the rising number of men in the profession.)

The Oscars 2019 Set A New Record For Women, But Gender Equality Is Still A Long Way Off, A New Report Shows.

This year’s Oscars seemed to finally provide solid representation for women in a number of categories. While the shortlist for Best Director and Best Picture remained firmly male, women absolutely killed it throughout the rest of the ceremony, the Oscars 2019 set a new record for women, with a total of 15 female winners — “the most in Oscar history” according to Entertainment Tonight. However, as Women’s Media Centre reports, it was actually only a quarter of the 211 individuals nominated who were female. Although that represents “25 per cent increase from the nominations two years ago,” there’s clearly still a very long way to go until women actually get the representation they deserve — especially in the major categories.

We knew that the 116th Congress was going to be the most diverse in history, with 102 women, many more openly gay members, more blacks, more Latinos, the first two female Native Americans, a Somali immigrant and the first ever Palestinian American woman elected to the House. But it was an altogether different thing to actually see that blazingly colorful diversity assembled under the portraits of the older white men who have lorded over the House of Representatives for so long.